]]>The average size of regeneration felling sites in family-owned forests in southern Finland is only 1.3 hectares. The figure has increased slightly over the past five years: in 2014 it was 1.2 hectares.

In Finland, regeneration sites have traditionally been smaller in family-owned forests than in other forests, and larger in northern Finland than in the south. This was also the case in 2018.

While the average size of regeneration sites in family-owned forests in southern Finland was 1.3 hectares in 2018, it was 1.9 hectares in the north. In forests owned by the state, the forest industry and other organizations, the figure was 2.1 hectares in the south and 3.1 in the north.

The site sizes have increased slightly over the past five years. In 2014, the figure in family-owned forests in the south was 1.2 hectares and 1.8 hectares in the north.

In Finland, some 80 percent of the timber used by the forest industry is procured from family-owned forests. All in all, some 1.5 percent of the area of Finland’s commercial forests is harvested annually. About half of that consists of regeneration fellings, and the rest consists of thinnings.

The boundaries of logging sites in Finland are mainly natural. In commercial forests, the unit of management is a forest compartment, which refers to an area that is uniform as regards its vegetation, micro-climate and soil characteristics.

Small logging sites have been considered problematic as they tend to increase the cost of the harvesting operations. The smaller the sites, the more often you will need to move the expensive forest machinery between them, and during the move, the machinery actually loses money instead of bringing it in.

Up to 2014, the Forest Act prohibited regeneration fellings before the trees in a compartment were sufficiently large. The current act, however, allows regeneration felling regardless of tree size, which, in principle, opens up a way to increase the size of felling sites.

At the moment, two adjacent and similar compartments can be regenerated at the same time, even if the trees in the two are of a different age, as they usually are.

Erno Järvinen, Research Manager at the Finnish forest owners’ union MTK, says it does not appear that the current act has caused forest owners to manage several forest compartments as one to a noticeable extent. ‘I would, however, recommend this. Small compartments are a problem for the profitability of forestry,’ says Järvinen.

According to Järvinen, forest owners may not be fully aware of the opportunity brought by the current Forest Act. ‘Of course, this is something that all advisory staff should make sure to talk about,’ says Järvinen.

Continuous-cover loggings peaked because of snow

According to the 2018 statistics, the share of the area of continuous-cover loggings in Finland was 3.4 percent. Of this, close to one third consisted of small-diameter clearcuttings, the rest of selective loggings.

The figure doubled compared to the preceding year, and this is all marked in eastern Finland, where the share of continuous-cover loggings rose to 6–12 percent, depending on the region. In Northern Karelia, for example, the share increased twentyfold compared to 2017.

According to Markku Remes, Principal Forestry Specialist at the Finnish Forest Centre, the increase may be due to heavy snow damage in the regions in question. In wintertime, snow sometimes piles up in tree canopies and branches, causing them to bend and finally break in large quantities.

’The areas where continuous-cover loggings have increased significantly correspond very well to areas with heavy snow damage,’ says Remes.

According to Remes, snow damage was particularly frequent in younger stands that were not yet ripe for regeneration. ’For the forest owner, continuous-cover logging was an obvious way to avoid planting or sowing a new forest. This would be required after a regeneration felling, and it would not have been very profitable in these forests, situated at relatively high altitudes and less fertile than forest lands in southern Finland,’ says Remes.

Remes estimates that this year the share of continuous-cover loggings will decrease from the 2018 figure and remain at 2–3 percent. ’As a matter of fact, the decrease already started at the end of 2018,’ says Remes.

In the long run, however, the share of continuous-cover silviculture is on an increase.

Environmental organisations have criticized the Forest Centre for not classifying the selective logging of the largest trees as continuous-cover logging. ’Our definition is that it is a selective logging only if you thin your forest more heavily than what is said in the forestry recommendations,’ says Remes.

]]>https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/clearcutting-sites-have-grown-slightly-in-finland-snow-damage-increased-use-of-continuous-cover-felling/feed/0Point of view: Finnish political parties play climate bingo with years – party programmes contain unexpected standpoints on forestry issueshttps://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/point-of-view-finnish-political-parties-play-climate-bingo-with-years-party-programmes-contain-unexpected-standpoints-on-forestry-issues/
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 05:32:45 +0000https://smy.fi/?post_type=post&p=241571In their programmes, Finnish political parties take a positive stand on promoting forest bioeconomy. Political debate may bring clarity to […]

]]>In their programmes, Finnish political parties take a positive stand on promoting forest bioeconomy. Political debate may bring clarity to some views, though at worst the stands expressed by one and the same party actually contradict each other.

Finland is set to have a parliamentary election on 14 April 2019, and the debate on forestry issues has mainly dealt with the level of future loggings in Finnish forests: should an increase be allowed, or should the level actually be decreased. Underlying this is the multitude of opinions on when Finland as a nation should reach carbon neutrality and when it should be carbon negative.

On a closer study of the election programmes, the bingo played with the target years begins to amuse the reader. The years mentioned as targets are not connected to any of the actions proposed. One gets the feeling that the most important thing is to believe in something – be it electric cars, renewable energy or prohibiting the use of coal.

The most confusing example is the programme entity of the Social Democrats (SDP). In its climate policy ’SDP considers that main criterion for evaluating the sustainability of the forest sector should be the size of the carbon sink.’

Thus, all of sustainability should be evaluated only on the basis of the carbon sink alone, overlooking such things as biodiversity or the social sustainability of forestry or the forest industry, which would include the pay scales and occupational safety, for example.

Essential issues on logging

Because the SDP’s standpoint on the increase of loggings has been somewhat vague, other parties have pressed it for answers as to whether or not loggings should be increased. During the sick leave of party chair Antti Rinne, deputy chair Sanna Marin has replied that it is not possible to express an opinion because even researchers cannot agree upon appropriate harvesting levels.

Juha Sipilä and Petteri Orpo, chairs of the Centre Party and the moderate right-wing National Coalition Party respectively, have expressed the opinion that politicians must be able to make decisions even on the basis of incomplete information. Orpo, for example, stressed in the party organ Verkkouutiset on 9 January that investments worth thousands of millions of euros under preparation require an answer from SDP as well, also because it currently leads the polls.

In actual fact, though, it is not up to the Government to decide on the logging levels in Finland, as they are set by the market. A better question to ask of the politicians could be what the Government should do if the logging levels set by the European Union were to be exceeded and the Commission decided to make Finland pay for it.

No one has asked this question, nor has anyone expressed an opinion about it.

Increase protection and number of wooden houses

The SDP wants to increase the network of protected national parks and safeguard the funding for the Metso forest biodiversity programme. The party would also increase the funding for services in the national parks.

The SDP states that wilderness tourism is a sustainable livelihood, and demands that the conditions for it should be improved – despite the fact that it is largely based on air travel, about which the party expresses deep concern elsewhere.

The SDP wants to increase wood construction and demands that it should be supported by legislative measures and land use planning. But details about new legislation are not presented, nor is it pointed out that land use planning is mainly decided on by the local authorities and not the Parliament.

The sensible thing for voters would thus be to ask the SDP candidates whether they have promoted wood construction locally, seeing that most of them also sit on local councils.

Whether or not biomass is considered a carbon neutral energy source has also been a subject of debate. The SDP climate programme says it is; apparently, this applies to all types of biomass. As regards transport, the party programme makes no mention of biofuels.

Get rid of burning

The election programme of the National Coalition Party states that the use of coal should be stopped during the 2020s, but it is unclear what should be replace it.

The Coalition Party approves of the use of forest industry sidestreams in energy production, but points out that the volume of sustainably produced bioenergy will never be sufficient to replace fossil fuels. According to the party, fossil energy and peat should be replaced by reducing the overall share of energy produced by combustion.

Is this, then, to be the solution: replace combustion by reducing combustion?

The Coalition Party wants to exclude biomass combustion as well. The solution proposed for making this possible is electricity and thermal pumps. On how the electricity now produced by combustion should be replaced, nothing is said.

Despite all this, the party considers the use of sidestreams from forestry in the production of liquid transport fuels to be an opportunity. It is difficult to say what they mean by this – at the moment, these fuels are not produced from the sidestreams of forestry but from those of the forest industry, and sad to say, using them will require combustion.

The Coalition Party wants to increase the value of forests in the long term. The carbon storage in forests should be increased by methods that maximise the value produced from timber for both the forest owner and the forest industry, and that increase the share of long-life wood products. ’In practice this may mean that on average, forests produce stouter timber and are slightly older.’

According to party chair Petteri Orpo, it is also possible to increase harvesting up to the levels considered sustainable by researchers.

The Coalition Party wants to allow different forestry methods; in particular, it wants to investigate the possibility for continuous-cover silviculture on peatlands. Just as the SDP, the Coalition Party wants to stop the ditching of peatlands to turn them into forest, some 20 years after this practice has been more or less discontinued due to forest certification.

Novel departure by Centre Party: Game policy

The first forestry-related objective of the Centre Party to be found is this: increase the forested area in Finland by such measures as afforesting abandoned agricultural fields, peat bogs no longer in production and corridors with buried powerlines. ’Poorly productive agricultural parcels could also be afforested,’ the party says.

The Party wants to increase wood construction. It has good opportunities to do this, being the largest political party in local councils and thus with a key role in promoting wood construction.

The Centre Party wants to launch a new forestry method: climate thinning. This refers to the thinning of young, over-dense forest stands, but slightly less heavily than before, in order to safeguard the forest carbon sink and minimise the risk of forest damage. In addition, these stands should be fertilized ’in the spirit of circular economy’ with ash from power plants fuelled by wood.

According to party chair Juha Sipilä, the party also supports replacing liquid transport fuels by biogas, as well as increasing the harvesting levels.

The Centre Party, too, wants to allocate more money to voluntary forest protection. The party would establish an online shop to promote the citizens’ voluntary protection efforts. In addition, the party has a brand new game policy, remarkable for the fact that even the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation supports most of its contents.

It is true that constructing of large wooden residential buildings has increased during the previous years in Finland, but to reach the level of importance, wood still has a very long journey to win, although every political party speaks in favour of wood construction.

The Finns Party is among those who cannot see the wood for the trees

The Finns Party was split in two in summer 2017, and the part that continues under the name Finns Party is arguably the most right-wing party with representatives in the Finnish Parliament, and certainly the loudest critic of Finland’s immigration policy.

According to the Finns Party, viable and productive forests provide both easy access to recreation and a livelihood. The party strongly supports the objectives of family forest owners; they must be able to implement their objectives, whether related to financial gain, landscape values or protection. However, the party does not want to increase the area of protected forests except on a voluntary basis.

Unlike other parties, the Finns Party is interested in the current state of Finnish forestry. The party demands forest planting to be carried out in due time after regeneration fellings to ensure a better regeneration. In addition, the party stresses that ’the obligations and actions required by the environmental programmes in the agriculture and forestry sectors have continued to increase, unlike the funds granted as support.’

According to party chair Jussi Halla-aho, harvesting levels may be increased. He also wants to safeguard sufficient funding for the national parks.

According to the Finns Party, ’biofuels are good if produced from the sidestreams of agriculture and forestry,’ but that they can only be a local solution. The party wants to support the production of fuel and heat on agricultural farms for their own use, which would also improve crisis preparedness.

The party does not support harvesting wood simply for energy production – though there are no plans to do so in Finland. Regrettably, the Finns Party does not see the wood for the trees in the sense that they, too, have fallen into the trap constructed by the environmental organisations, in saying that for a tree, ’it takes decades to grow up… and burning wood will become climate neutral only after a very long time.’

From the perspective of the ecosystem this does not make sense. In Finland, the use of wood is climate positive and the carbon storage of forests keeps growing all the time, here and now.

The Greens would use taxpayer money to support their supporters

The Greens of Finland want to make all use of cars emission-free before 2040. They would only allow ‘air, marine and heavy road transport’ to use biofuels.

According to the Greens, ’the actual climate impact of forest use should be taken into account when evaluating climate actions.’ If ’actual climate impact’ means something other than a compromise resulting from political negotiations, the statement is indeed encouraging.

Investments in low-emission and renewable production should be financially supported in a technology-neutral way. Yet, the Greens say nothing about how to evaluate whether production is low-emission – something that is crucial for the use of different biomasses.

According to party chair Pekka Haavisto, harvesting levels should not be increased. But wood construction should be promoted, and again, by land use planning, but also by investing in education and research and revising building regulations.

The Greens also want to allocate more money to the Metso programme, and they even have a target figure for protection: at least ten percent of the forests in southern Finland should be protected.

What the party means here by ’forest’ is not defined. If they concur with the environmental organisations, the areas to be protected would be the forests best suited for the production of raw material for wood construction and the area of protected forest in southern Finland would increase 2.5-fold.

The Greens also want to establish more national parks and would like to see better harvesting methods in state-owned forests – but they do not demand a ban for clearcutting. And, as if in parentheses, they demand the Green Belt protection zone on the Finnish-Russian border to be extended.

Perhaps the most interesting demand of the Greens is that state financial support for environmental organisations should be increased. Could any other party have the courage to publicly demand this for the benefit of their own background organisations?

Left Alliance goes one better

The Left Alliance, successor of the late Finnish People’s Democratic League, has the lowest numbers on its bingo card: they want to make Finland carbon negative by the early 2030s.

The party wants to make ’climate heroes of the farmers and forest owners’ by rewarding them if they postpone logging their forests; this most likely refers to regeneration fellings. This would be a ’win-win situation.’ Even though ’some of the rewards would be recovered through taxation,’ the forest owner would benefit, because the timber would be stouter at the time of selling and thus bring in more revenue.

Still, not everybody would win. It is quite usual, though astonishing, especially in the case of a left-wing party, that what the timber is used for – or in this case, not used – after logging is of no interest at all. What about all the jobs in all the forest-related industries?

According to party chair Li Andersson, harvesting levels should not be increased. The party also wants to accelerate ecological restructuring by supporting R&D and by eliminating forms of financial support that are harmful for the environment, such as compensation for the expense of carbon emissions trade to industry and energy tax refunds to the ’climate heroes’, that is, the farmers.

The party supports emission-free transport, achieved by the use of biogas and ethanol in cars. Wood construction should be made a national project, using the same measures as those suggested by other political parties.

The party wants to update the protection programmes of forests and mires, to increase protection in southern Finland to cover ten percent of the forests and to safeguard the funding for the Metso programme.

Christian Democrats: No real estate tax for forests

The election programme of the Christian Democrats is very concrete. They want to steer the use of cars towards lower emissions, without worrying overmuch about the best way of achieving this. The party considers that in public construction, carbon sequestration and the use of wood should be emphasized.

And in complete contrast to all other parties, the party has an opinion on the levying of real estate tax on forest land – a proposal expressed in public debate in Finland every now and then. The party opposes the tax, and argues for it in a politically correct way: it could ’threaten everyman’s rights, weaken nature protection and make forestry taxation even more complicated.’

The party chair Sari Essayah says that the current harvesting levels could be increased in the future.

The opinions of the party chairs quoted here were mainly derived from their interventions in the panel discussion organised by the newspaper Maaseudun Tulevaisuus and the union of Finnish family forest owners MTK on 9 January 2019.

]]>Wood is an increasingly common solution to the problems with plastics – forest industry also focused on design in 2018https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/wood-is-an-increasingly-common-solution-to-the-problems-with-plastics-forest-industry-also-focused-on-design-in-2018/
https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/wood-is-an-increasingly-common-solution-to-the-problems-with-plastics-forest-industry-also-focused-on-design-in-2018/#respondWed, 30 Jan 2019 07:49:36 +0000https://smy.fi/?post_type=post&p=240843forest.fi asked the three biggest Finnish forest industry companies what the year 2018 brought along. The common denominators of last […]

]]>forest.fi asked the three biggest Finnish forest industry companies what the year 2018 brought along. The common denominators of last year’s launches from Metsä Group, Stora Enso and UPM are environmental friendliness and sustainability.

Finnish forestry companies introduced several consumer products and packaging solutions where fossil raw materials have been replaced by bio-based materials.

Stora Enso contributes to solving the global plastics waste problem with a drinking straw. With the Finnish start-up company Sulapac, the company is launching a straw made of a biocomposite, which decomposes in a few months after entering the sea.

According to Suvi Haimi, Managing Director of Sulapac, plastic straws are manufactured and used up to billions per week globally. The Finnish bio-straw should be on the market in the first half of 2019.

A straw made of a biocomposite decomposes after entering the sea. Photo: Stora EnsoThe new kitchen utensils consist of 98% bio-based material. Photo: Stora Enso

“Consumer demand is strongly driven by environmental awareness. Our customers are looking for help in replacing non-renewable materials. Various solutions based on biocomposites, such as renewable caps, twist-ties and straws, bring added value to our customers,” said Hannu Kasurinen, Head of Finance, Stragevy and IT at Stora Enso’s Renewable Packaging Division, in connection with the announcement of the innovation cooperation.

Bio-Straw also offers a solution to the European Union’s objectives of replacing certain plastics products with others made of environmentally friendly materials.

While waiting for the drinking straws, climate-smart consumers can already buy an eco-friendlier cheese slicer or cutting board made by Orthex from Stora Enso’s biocomposite. The new kitchen utensils by this company known for practical plastics products consist of 98% bio-based material, creating new value from such things as sawdust, a side stream from the sawmill industry.

No more bubble plastics or plastic cup lids

Metsä Board, part of Metsä Group, has developed paperboard packages that require less plastic. The paperboard producer organized an international packaging design competition, in which the winner of the e-commerce category was packaging designer Iiro Numminen. In his solution, an internal element of corrugated cardboard ensures that the product does not move about during transport – with no need for bubble wrap.

“The winning design entry offers a new, more sustainable and aesthetic alternative to bubble wrap,” said Cyril Drout, Design and Innovation Director at Metsä Board and chair of the competition jury. “The result is very attractive, versatile, scalable and suitable for a wide range of uses.”

Paperboard cup does not need a separate plastic lid. Photo: Metsä GroupNew alternatives to greaseproof food packaging do not require fossil-based barriers even on the inside. Photo: Metsä Group

Another packaging solution designed for Metsä Board was awarded in the internationally renowned Red Dot design competition. The Lidloc paperboard cup does not need a separate plastic lid. The patented Lidloc design is based on an extension to a standard cup structure that folds and locks to make an integrated lid. The solution is currently being tested by Metsä Board’s customers.

New alternatives to greaseproof food packaging are also entering the market, and they do not require fossil-based barriers even on the inside. One of these paperboards is the Eco-barrier paperboard introduced by Metsä Board in 2018.

The inner layer of the paperboard developed especially for takeaway food has a special barrier treatment that makes the packaging recyclable and biodegradable.

Forget glue and screws, too

UPM has developed a biocomposite for 3D printing that combines the characteristics of cellulose fibres and native PLA plastic. Products made of the material are non-toxic and odourless. They can be worked in the same way as wood, making it possible to sand and paint them, for example.

The UPM Formi 3D printing material is of high quality and is typically used in architectural design and the production of design items. It can be purchased from online retailers and has been used for loudspeakers and in car manufacturing, among others.

For the construction industry, UPM offers decking boards made of biocomposite. In 2018, the collection was complemented with Profi Piazza, advertised as stain resistant and colourfast. It contains 75% recycled materials, namely recycled plastics and paper and plastics offcuts from the manufacturing of self-adhesive labels.

The biocomposite deck also saves materials, time and energy thanks to its installation system: the entire deck can be built without drilling and screws.

Metsä Wood, part of Metsä Group, launched an open platform for sharing knowledge and innovations in modular wood construction. The purpose of the Open Source Wood Initiative is to increase the use of prefabricated wood elements in construction. The platform opensourcewood.com is accessible to anyone free of charge.

Metsä Wood also awards innovative element and modular designs shared on the platform and based on Metsä Wood’s laminated veneer lumber. One of the awarded modular building systems is the Cliphut designed by Thomaz Vieira, Tomas Mena and Maria Wilkens at a German University of Applied Sciences. In the Cliphut system building elements are linked together with a special mechanism.

If you do glue, then do it with lignin

Glues and paints can also be produced in a more environmentally friendly way from wood raw material. Lignin acts as support in wood material and is derived as a sidestream of pulp production and traditionally burned for energy.

The energy needs of pulp mills having diminished, there is enough lignin for other uses. For example, it can replace oil-based phenols in glues, and it is used by UPM in the manufacturing of plywood.

Lignin will find a future use as the raw material for carbon fibre in aircraft, cars and windmills. Photo: Stora Enso

Stora Enso has also developed a lignin bio-product of its own, called Lineo. When lignin is separated from softwood pulp, the result is a dry, brown powder which, according to the company, will find a future use as the raw material for carbon fibre in aircraft, cars and windmills.

“Being bio-based, Lineo is an excellent alternative for companies that don’t want to use oil-based products. We believe that everything made of fossil raw materials today can be made of wood tomorrow,” Markus Mannström, Director of Stora Enso’s Biomaterials Division, said at the launch of Lineo.

]]>https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/wood-is-an-increasingly-common-solution-to-the-problems-with-plastics-forest-industry-also-focused-on-design-in-2018/feed/0Girls in forest sector want to be allowed to be themselves – the sector is among the most male-dominated in Finlandhttps://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/girls-in-forest-sector-want-to-be-allowed-to-be-themselves-the-sector-is-among-the-most-male-dominated-in-finland/
https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/girls-in-forest-sector-want-to-be-allowed-to-be-themselves-the-sector-is-among-the-most-male-dominated-in-finland/#respondMon, 21 Jan 2019 08:23:55 +0000https://smy.fi/?post_type=post&p=240758The forest sector in Finland is facing the severest shortage of labour ever. The sector must be made more attractive […]

]]>The forest sector in Finland is facing the severest shortage of labour ever. The sector must be made more attractive to many groups, and perhaps the most important of them is girls and young women.

Women who start forest-related studies face the need to adapt to a masculine branch of industry at a young age, when their identity, and gender as part of it, is still taking shape. ‘It is important for them that girls could be girls and be proud of it,’ says Tuula Joro, Researcher at the University of Eastern Finland.

An example quoted by Joro is timber lorry driver Jonna Matikainen, who talks about the different aspects of her life on her Instagram account at @jonnatsiu.

Matikainen may, however, be an exception. On being asked, young women in the forest sector position themselves primarily through masculinity. They feel at home with the masculine aspects of the rural work culture, and less so with all the girly stuff often thought to focus on a person’s appearance.

Girls in the forest sector see themselves as acting like boys, which they describe as ‘larking about’, or working with tractors, or hunting. Doing your nails, neat clothing and avoiding dirt are seen as girly stuff.

Joro spoke at the closing event of the ‘Forest speaks to new skills’ project in Helsinki last week. The project was aimed at improving the image of the forest sector among young people and attracting them to the sector.

According to Research Professor Tommi Hoikkala, the factors affecting atypical career choices are different for boys and girls. Photo: Vilma Issakainen

Under one percent of secondary-level forestry students are girls

The forest sector is not the only male-dominated sector in Finland, and the grounds given for atypical career choices are the same in all of them. However, forestry is one of the most segregated ones: of young people entering secondary-level studies in forestry, only under one percent are women, while in the automotive sector, for example, their share is close to 15 percent.

The factors affecting atypical career choices are different for boys and girls. ‘For example, girls whose parents have university-level education are less likely to be attracted to atypical sectors, but we did not find this to be true for boys. Why this should be so, we don’t know,’ says Tommi Hoikkala, Research Professor at the Finnish Youth Research Society. Hoikkala leads a research project aiming at dismantling gender segregation in education and working life.

Analysing the interviews, the researchers have found no support for the assumption underlying official educational policy that young people are rational and goal-oriented when making choices about their future. In reality, choices are mainly made because at certain points in your life you just have to make them.

On completing comprehensive school, at about age 16, factors not inherent to future studies play a decisive part: the choices your friends make, your hobbies, the location of possible future schools, family traditions.

Career counselling is strongly criticised

Girls and boys may be driven towards atypical choices by the strongly differentiated gender practices. While boys may be driven by a divergent view of masculinity, girls may be guided by assertive femininity.

‘But this cannot be generalized. I would rather call this a weak signal,’ Hoikkala stresses.

‘A boy making an atypical choice may, for example, have had negative experiences of masculinity in a male-dominated branch, and so he opts for a female-dominated branch, but in a very goal-oriented way,’ says Hoikkala. The attitude of girls described as assertive is well illustrated by the characterizations also known in the forest sector, such as ‘That Mary’s one great bloke’.

Another finding mentioned by Hoikkala was the young people’s opinion that the career counselling provided by schools is bland and often guides towards stereotypical choices. Joro is of the same opinion: ‘Some of the teachers providing counselling speak of the forest sector as something that involves physically hard work and does not need a great deal of education, giving the impression that what is mostly needed is dedication and brawn,’ says Joro.

According to Researcher Tuula Joro, some of the teachers providing career counselling speak of the forest sector as something that involves physically hard work and does not need a great deal of education, giving the impression that what is mostly needed is dedication and brawn. Photo: Vilma Issakainen

Current efforts are clearly not working

How, then, could the forest sector become attractive to girls? Quite clearly, there is something wrong with what is being done.

Joro observed that forest professionals’ visits to schools and pupils’ visits to workplaces have made almost no impression on girls and caused none of them to become interested in the sector. During the ensuing discussion, the opinion was expressed that events designed to inform young people about the forest sector should always have at least one woman speaker, no matter how thin on the ground they might be in the sector.

According to Joro, social and traditional media play a key role. They should publicise the view that a girl can work in a masculine branch without giving up the girly stuff and yet be taken seriously.

A girl may very well put a harvester through its paces at work and later ‘trip along in high heels and a miniskirt’. ‘Neither activity should affect her worth as a forest worker, or as a girl or woman,’ says Joro.

Ultimately, what we should remember is the same as with everybody else: we are all individuals. You cannot make anyone interested by treating them as representatives of a group; what you should do is ask them how things are for just them.

Or, in the words of Aino Salonen, Concept Planner at the Demi magazine targeted to teenager girls: ‘Girls may feel like girls, but they don’t like being categorized as girls by someone else.’

]]>https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/girls-in-forest-sector-want-to-be-allowed-to-be-themselves-the-sector-is-among-the-most-male-dominated-in-finland/feed/0Point of view: From stovepipes to sustainabilityhttps://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/point-of-view-from-stovepipes-to-sustainability/
https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/point-of-view-from-stovepipes-to-sustainability/#commentsTue, 15 Jan 2019 06:32:07 +0000https://smy.fi/?post_type=post&p=240646To reach sustainability, we should consider what kind of world we actually want. Policies that are designed to control progress […]

]]>To reach sustainability, we should consider what kind of world we actually want. Policies that are designed to control progress at molecular level will in practice prevent innovation and solutions, writes Lena Ek.

The Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 put focus on the environment. It was the right thing to do at that time. However, without wishing to belittle the process that followed, it was not until 2015 that we finally came up with the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals and then the Paris Agreement the same year, which emphasizes them as a condition for sustainable climate change combat.

This is a change. On the track that started in Rio we had stovepiped environmental issues and lost sight of the fact that they are part of a larger whole and must therefore be balanced against several other goals. In other words, we have to weigh the environment against economic, social and environmental sustainability.

This is a major step. Even though it feels natural, it represents a new way of thinking and leading.

Let me give an example. The Swedish Wood Fibre Act from the end of the 1980s meant that politicians decided to send sawmill chips to plywood manufacturers and not to make pellets, because they thought that burning them as pellets is not as environmental as making board of them.

The only problem was that plywood manufacturers could not use all of the chips, which meant that they were left to rot.

The reason was a lack of trust. The politicians thought that businesses have no other goal than to gain revenue as easily as possible.

However, if we want to solve the challenges of climate change together, there must be a certain degree of trust in the business sector and the market.

To develop bioeconomy, increase demand for saw logs

It is not a secret that we in business are remobilising. Our pulp mills are now biorefineries. They produce not only packaged pulp, but also power and heat for ourselves and the rest of the society. In addition to this, we get a wide range of residual products that we use and develop to, for example, replace plastics and fossil energy.

However, some people claim that we are burning down our forests. This discussion is patently absurd.

A forest owner’s core business is saw logs. Without sawn timber, which is used for long-lived products, forest management would not be profitable. This means that to develop bioeconomy, we have to increase the demand for saw logs.

By doing this, we also increase the supply of renewable materials and products in the form of biofuels, textiles, packaging and chemicals.

To build a house for four people, we need 40 cubic metres of timber. When the trees for this house are harvested, all of the trees is used, but all of it cannot be used for building the house.

Branches and treetops cannot be used for boards, and chips from the surface of the logs are left over when the log is sawn. What do we do with all these residues?

Because of building the house, we are also releasing enough energy to heat the same house for two years, generating enough electricity to supply the household for three years, enabling paper production equal to more than ten years’ consumption by the four-person family, producing textiles equal to 25 years of clothing per person and enabling s production of biofuel equivalent to 1.7 megawatt hours.

But this is possible only if we can produce not only sawlogs, but also pulpwood and biomaterials that can be sold on the market.

Wood construction gives all the other benefits as well

So how can we speed up bioeconomy? First, go home and start building with timber. Make small buildings, large buildings, huge buildings. And after that, all the other climate benefits will fall into place.

This makes it easy to realize that the production of short-lived products cannot be separated from long-lived ones. They are part of a whole, the two sides of one coin.

However, some people think that the positive effects of timber construction are too small. To tackle this ideology, turn the question upside down and ask what you would get from using concrete only.

The answer is simple. You get emissions.

The carbon dioxide emissions from the production of concrete buildings compared with a timber-frame building are twice as high. The number of truckloads to a construction site for a multifamily residential building made of concrete in Sweden is 232, but of timber, 47.

This being true, why is there so much concrete and so little timber-frame construction? One reason is the price: timber is about ten percent more expensive per tonne.

In Sweden, this difference has meant that 90 percent of construction uses concrete, and 10 percent uses timber. But we do know that if the concrete industry bore its own costs for absorbing the carbon dioxide emissions it produces, the price of the materials would be the same.

Local decision-makers can make the change

This is a situation that can be tackled in several ways. Every country should find its own solutions. I only want to point out that wood holds a key role when we speak about sustainable cities.

In Växjö – where Södra has its head office – the municipality decided that half of all new buildings constructed must have a timber frame.

And do you know what? They have been successful. Local decision-makers can make a difference, you do not need to wait for government programmes and state subsidies.

This stimulates industry investments. Södra produces prefabricated timber modules in the same way as precast concrete wall panels are made. We are able to construct four timber-frame buildings in the same time as somebody else constructs one concrete building.

In addition to this, the construction site is healthier and safer and because of fewer truckloads, the quality of air and traffic safety in the cities improve.

It is our duty to shift the focus from problems to opportunities. Not least because environmental debate today is all too often alienating itself from people. It revolves around the ideas that we are too late, that the doomsday is coming and that we have to shrink the economy.

No one who drives reforms that will make life considerably more difficult will win any votes, or change society. This is the idea of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

They were designed to advance the society – not to hold back.

”Thanks for bringing us into the future,” was one evaluation of the Forest Academy for EU Decision-Makers. The participants attended nocturnal bonfire on the 21st of November, 2018. Photo: Erkki Oksanen

]]>https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/point-of-view-from-stovepipes-to-sustainability/feed/2Work to decrease threats towards forest habitat types is well-established – but needs to be intensifiedhttps://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/work-to-decrease-threats-towards-forest-habitat-types-is-well-established-but-needs-to-be-intensified/
https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/work-to-decrease-threats-towards-forest-habitat-types-is-well-established-but-needs-to-be-intensified/#respondMon, 07 Jan 2019 10:37:37 +0000https://smy.fi/?post_type=post&p=240512Three quarters of the forest habitat types in Finland have been classified as endangered. The main cause of this is […]

]]>Three quarters of the forest habitat types in Finland have been classified as endangered. The main cause of this is the use and management of forests. According to researchers, the situation would be even worse without nature management efforts, and they recommend that the efforts are intensified.

The assessment of endangered habitat types in Finland, published in December, contained no great surprises as regards forests. The main causes of threats are the absence of deadwood and large-size legacy trees in forests.

The threats were assessed on the basis of guidelines developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN. Three time-frames were used: from the 1750s to the present, as well as the past and next 50 years.

A great number of changes leading to the endangeredness of forest habitat types have taken place since the 1750s. Changes during the past 50 years have caused the weakening of 41 percent of habitat types.

48 percent of all Finnish habitat types were assessed as being endangered. The greatest threat is faced by traditional agricultural habitat types, and all of them were classified as critically endangered. As regards forests, the only habitats assessed as being critically endangered were relatively dry mineral soil forests as well as both young and old dry mineral soil forests in southern Finland.

For forests, the baseline data for 1750 consisted of the history of forest use and of studies on natural forests and on the functioning of forest ecosystems. For the past 50 years, the baseline data came from the National Forest Inventories, and for the next 50 years, forest simulations and the goals of forest policy were used.

Human activity is likely to have changed natural environments even before 1750, as only one third of the forests in southern Finland were in natural state at that point. The researchers consider that the protection of habitat types should focus on types that have recently become endangered or continue to weaken.

Percentage of endangered habitat types does not equal percentage of land area

The ecological quality of mineral soil forests, for example, was assessed on three parameters: the amount of deadwood and the number of both large legacy trees and deciduous trees. However, as to what would be a sufficient figure for each parameter for a habitat to be considered as causing least concern, no simple or unambiguous answer was available.

The essential factor here is change. ‘Assessments are only based on the change in the quality or area of a habitat type. No actual targets have been defined for the parameters,’ says Jari Kouki, Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of Eastern Finland, who was in charge of the assessment of forest habitat types.

Luckily, no forest habitat types had completely disappeared from Finland. This is not the case in Britain, for example, where it is not even really known what the forests were like when they still existed.

The percentages of endangered habitat types have been calculated out of the number of all habitat types. The figure is not a direct indication of the size of the land area of each habitat type that is endangered. Nor can you use the percentage to conclude practically anything about how endangered an individual forest stand might be.

‘We were not able to calculate the share of the land area of endangered habitat types, because we don’t know the total land area of all individual habitat types,’ says Tytti Kontula, Senior Research Scientist at the Finnish Environment Institute. Kontula was in charge of coordinating the whole assessment project.

‘The share of the land area covered by habitat types in the endangered, near-threatened and least concern categories can only be assessed for just under 70 percent of Finland’s land area. About half of this area is covered by habitat types assessed as being endangered,’ says Kontula.

What share of this is taken up by forest habitat types is not known.

One’s loss is someone else’s gain

As a concept, the endangeredness of habitat types differs from the endangeredness of species. While species may at worst be threatened by total extinction, endangered habitat types, described as collapsed, may still be restored. ‘Yes, this is possible for some of them, although it may take a long time or demand a lot of restoration efforts,’ says Kontula.

‘If the weakening of a habitat type is due to changes in its ecological quality rather than its land area, the prospects of restoring it may be good,’ says Kouki.

An increased endangeredness may be due to a decrease of the area of the habitat type, or to a decrease of its quality. However, ‘collapse’ does not invariably mean that nature itself disappears, but that the type of habitat will change.

‘If, for example, an inland water habitat type collapses, this won’t mean that the lake or river in question disappears, but that its quality drops below a certain level. And when some habitat types regress, some others may benefit. When, for example, coastal meadows become overgrown, it means that they are invaded by bushes and shrubs,’ says Kontula.

According to Kontula, the weakening of nutrient-poor forest habitat types is linked to an increase in nutrients, which may be due to several reasons, such as nitrogen fallout, fertilization or infrequent forest fires.

In commercial forests, the total area of habitat types in good condition is some 90,000 hectares. The researchers recommend that they all should be protected.

Nature management efforts have to be intensified

What should be done when a forest habitat type weakens? ‘It is a fact of life that Finland will continue to use her forests even in the future, and that is not going to stop because of this assessment,’ says Kontula.

The researchers present a long list of recommendations, among which those related to forests are mostly already in use or being considered. According to Kouki, any example of a forest habitat in good condition should be preserved.

Some examples of forest habitats in good condition are located inside protection areas. ‘On the basis of the National Forest Inventories we can estimate that in commercial forests, the total area of such habitats is some 90,000 hectares. If you compare this with, say, the goals of the Metso biodiversity programme, the figure doesn’t seem too far out,’ says Kouki.

In addition to this, all examples of rare habitat types, such as herb-rich forests on the most nutritious soils and those with hardwood trees, should be preserved even if their ecological quality is not very high.

Kouki also recommends preserving those structural features of forests that are ecologically most important, such as old or dead trees, in connection with regeneration fellings. In addition, forest management methods should be diversified.

‘Continuous-cover silviculture may be included as one of the methods, but it is likely that even in even-aged forestry, the mechanisms could be improved to better imitate natural processes,’ Kouki says.

Many forest habitat types, including eskers and herb-rich forests, also require management in order to be preserved, and this is already an active forestry method. According to Kouki, restoring habitats by the controlled use of fires should also be intensified.

]]>https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/work-to-decrease-threats-towards-forest-habitat-types-is-well-established-but-needs-to-be-intensified/feed/0For Finns, a cultivated spruce is the most beautiful Christmas tree – in the US, 80 percent of Christmas trees are made of plasticshttps://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/for-finns-a-cultivated-spruce-is-the-most-beautiful-christmas-tree-in-the-us-80-percent-of-christmas-trees-are-made-of-plastics/
https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/for-finns-a-cultivated-spruce-is-the-most-beautiful-christmas-tree-in-the-us-80-percent-of-christmas-trees-are-made-of-plastics/#respondThu, 20 Dec 2018 10:29:34 +0000https://smy.fi/?post_type=post&p=240486In addition to traditions and beauty, environmental values play an increasingly prominent role when choosing the Christmas tree. As regards […]

]]>In addition to traditions and beauty, environmental values play an increasingly prominent role when choosing the Christmas tree. As regards the choice of species, Finns tend to avoid Scots pine as a Christmas tree, though it is often chosen in the farthest north of Finland, because spruce does not grow there.

1.5 million Christmas trees are decorated in Finnish homes every Christmas. Four out of five are bought and 85 percent of these are cultivated in Finland. 300,000 families fetch their tree themselves, either from their own forest or, with permission, from somebody else’s.

Nevertheless, in the Finns’ opinion a traditional wild spruce is not as beautiful as a cultivated one. A poll organised by the Finnish Forest Museum Lusto in early December revealed the most popular tree to be a pruned, cultivated spruce, which received 37 percent of the votes.

Lusto also inquired what kind of tree the respondents would absolutely not want to have in their homes. Over 70 percent would not have a pine, and close to 60 percent would not accept a plastic tree. Nearly half of the respondents did not like Macedonian pines or upright junipers.

Locally grown spruce is an ecological choice

The Finnish Forest Centre has found that environmental awareness is becoming increasingly important when choosing the Christmas tree. A spruce in a pot is chosen more and more often, perhaps because it can be planted in the yard after Christmas.

”If you fetch your tree from the forest, a good choice is a slowly-grown spruce with plenty of branches that stands close to a bunch of other spruces. This will leave space for the remaining trees to grow,” says Markku Remes, Principal Forestry Expert at the Forest Centre.

The closer to your home the spruce grows, the more ecological it is. The carbon footprint of locally grown spruces mainly consists of the emissions from transporting it.

According to the Finnish Christmas Tree Society, the carbon footprint of a Finnish Christmas tree is a couple of kilograms. The amount of fertilizers or pesticides used in the cultivation is small or non-existent.

It has been estimated in Germany that a Christmas tree plantation of one hectare sequesters 145 tonnes of carbon, significantly more than a hectare of agricultural field. The German federal union of Christmas tree growers points out that environmentality is also increased by the use of sheep instead of pesticides to maintain the plantations.

A plastic tree is more environmental than a natural tree, if used sufficiently many times. According to Antti Asikainen, Research Professor at Natural Resources Institute Finland, the life span of plastic Christmas trees is estimated to vary between six and 20 years.

Christmas tree is an international tradition

The Christmas tree tradition has come to Finland from central Europe, and the trends connected to the tradition continue to be very similar across countries. For example, the federal union of German growers says that Christmas trees are getting smaller and are increasingly more often grown in Germany.

A total of 27 million Christmas trees are sold in Germany this year. According to the federal union, 90 percent of them are domestic.

The British Christmas Tree Growers Association also recommends that people should buy a natural, British-grown spruce, because during its growth, it generates oxygen and offers a home for many living organisms.

The American Christmas Tree Association in the United States is open-minded about the choice of tree. In the words of Jami Warner, the Association chair, family traditions and Christmas memories are important in the choice.

Christmas is celebrated around a Christmas tree in 95 million American homes. Of American Christmas trees, 82 percent are artificial.

Mobile permits and geocaching

In Finland, a natural Christmas tree can be bought from outside supermarkets or delivered to your door on the web, or you can pick and fell it yourself on many plantations.

Those with a competitive bent can participate in Christmas tree geocaching. The local associations of forest owners donate a number of Christmas trees to people by publishing the coordinates of the cached trees at a moment announced in advance.

In line with the principles of geocaching, everyone is allowed to participate, and whoever finds the tree first may keep it.

In northern Finland you can also fetch a Christmas tree yourself from state-owned commercial forests, after purchasing a five-euro permit on your mobile.

]]>https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/for-finns-a-cultivated-spruce-is-the-most-beautiful-christmas-tree-in-the-us-80-percent-of-christmas-trees-are-made-of-plastics/feed/0Harvesters may explode the volume of data from forestshttps://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/harvesters-may-explode-the-volume-of-data-from-forests/
https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/harvesters-may-explode-the-volume-of-data-from-forests/#respondFri, 14 Dec 2018 07:32:16 +0000https://smy.fi/?post_type=post&p=240399New technology and big data open up new opportunities for forest harvesting entrepreneurs, allowing them to provide services for a […]

]]>New technology and big data open up new opportunities for forest harvesting entrepreneurs, allowing them to provide services for a variety of purposes.

Even today, harvesters gather a stunning amount of data for forestry needs, but they could do it for others, too. The machine could make available many new types of data from forests.

”This could be of interest to other sectors of society, and some might even be prepared to pay for it,” says Matti Rahikka, an expert on data protection and Executive Director of the DPO Finland company. Rahikka was one of the speakers at the Forest Day organised by the Trade Association of Finnish Forestry and Earth Moving Contractors.

Sensors attached to harvesters already gather data on distances, temperatures, humidity, air pressure, velocity, light, soil conditions, geography and location, as well as the amount and water content of snow.

According to Rahikka, a harvester could also function as the ground base of a drone. Computer vision is developing fast and also offers new possibilities for drones.

Drones can be programmed to follow animate or inanimate objects, they are able to fly along a pre-set path, avoiding obstacles and then returning to their path. They can reach a speed of 50 km/h and are able to fly even seven kilometres without re-charging.

A drone could estimate the amount of stout timber in a forest and the amount of smaller timber for pulp production. It could estimate the quality of the forest and, for example, check the condition of powerlines.

It can identify animal species and count the number of individuals per species. It can look for spruces suitable for Christmas trees, find mushrooms and berries and tell whether they are good for picking – for it can tell the difference between ripe and unripe berries even if shaded by leaves.

Movable base station to harvesting sites

When a harvester is transported into the forest, the same lorry could bring in a base station for broadband connections and an aggregate. ”This would provide a power source and broadband to the people living nearby,” says Rahikka.

At the moment, image processing software is able to identify individuals by their faces in a crowd, as well as their moods – and even different foods and their components on a plate.

360-degree cameras could be installed in forest machinery to monitor, for example, the condition of the forest and the trees spared during logging. Machine vision can tell whether the operator is having a break, repairing the machine or back in his seat. Or whether he, or she, is in a good mood.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of all kinds of appliances, such as refrigerators, freezers, bicycles – of anything you can imagine – connected to the internet. When connected, these devices can then gather and transmit data wherever we want it.

The largest artefact in a forest is the harvester. ”Even today, it is full of computer and communication technology, but the time may have come for it to start serving not just the forest sector but the whole society,” says Rahikka.

All information that is needed in harvesting comes to the computer of the harvester through mobile phone network, which also is the way to send the information of harvesting operations and harvested trees back to the purchaser of the wood. Photo: Anna Kauppi

New use for old NMT frequency

Sensors connected to the IoT network transmit data through the Narrow Band IoT (NBIoT), with a frequency of 450 megahertz. This was used earlier by analog mobile phone networks, such as the Nordic Mobile Telephone, the predecessor of the GSM network in the Nordic countries.

For IoT, the network has two important features. It has a very long range, several tens of kilometres. Secondly, it cannot transmit large quantities of data, but this is not a problem for sensors working in NBIoT.

As a result, these sensors do not need much energy and they may be located at quite a distance to the base station. At the moment such sensors may function for even ten years without re-charging, and their price is continuously decreasing.

Thus, the 450-megahertz network is best suited for appliances with moderate smarts, but it can accommodate a great number of them and across a large area. If the prices continue to drop, one day they might be scattered in the forest just like seeds to transmit data on the conditions in their environment for as long as the power supply will last.

Examples of existing NBIoT technologies include parking spaces indicating that they are free, problem spots in plumbing, remote sensing of heart rate, sensor-equipped collars for sheepto inform their location, or letterboxes and trash bins indicating they should be emptied.

Who owns the data?

But who owns the data gathered by a harvester? The data may be gathered for the harvester owner, but also sold to other parties.

According to Finnish legislation, you cannot own data, says Rahikka. “But you can own the device or appliance in which the data is stored. And in most cases sharing the data makes sense – whether or not you want someone to pay for it,” says Rahikka.

In Finland, there is by now an agreement on sharing the data gathered by forest machinery between forest industry companies, forest machine entrepreneurs and the manufacturers of forest machinery. The agreement aims at clarifying the rules of owning and sharing the data and at promoting new applications and services based on data gathered by forest machinery.

In addition to the forest industry companies, only one forest owner is a party to the agreement: the state forest company Metsähallitus. However, private forest owners are free to join in whenever they wish.

]]>https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/harvesters-may-explode-the-volume-of-data-from-forests/feed/0First Lady celebrated Finland’s independence in wood-fibre gown – closely followed by the whole nationhttps://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/first-lady-celebrated-finlands-independence-in-wood-fibre-gown-closely-followed-by-the-whole-nation/
https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/first-lady-celebrated-finlands-independence-in-wood-fibre-gown-closely-followed-by-the-whole-nation/#respondFri, 07 Dec 2018 08:25:00 +0000https://smy.fi/?post_type=post&p=240295The celebration of Finland’s Independence Day on 6 December culminates with a reception given by the President of the Republic […]

]]>The celebration of Finland’s Independence Day on 6 December culminates with a reception given by the President of the Republic at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki. This year the First Lady, Mrs. Jenni Haukio wore a gown that started life as a birch in North Karelia.

The live TV broadcast of the reception and ball nets one of the highest viewerships in Finland. Armed with refreshments and snacks, people gather together for an all-out sizing up of the invitees’ apparel. The invitees include the highest élite of Finnish society, complemented by a sample of the ordinary citizens the President has met during the preceding year – and, of course, by the foreign ambassadors stationed in Finland.

This time the sight of one particular dress was looked forward to with excitement by many, not least by those active in the forest sector. It was the gown of the First Lady, Mrs Jenni Haukio, the fabric for which consists of dissolved-pulp fibres, produced by Stora Enso at its Uimaharju mill in North Karelia.

Sirpa Välimaa, Dissolving Pulp Product Manager at Stora Enso, was definitely among those most excited. ”We actually planned to set up a studio at the Uimaharju mill to follow the broadcast. It’s really great to see how our mill, with its 51-year history, gains new life with dissolving pulp and new technology,” says Välimaa.

The fabric of Mrs. Haukio’s gown was made of dissolving pulp with the completely new Ioncell technology. In the process, the pulp was first dissolved, spun into fibres, carded, spun into yarn and then made into a gown at Aalto University.

The idea for an Ioncell gown for Mrs. Haukio was originally conceived by Tuula Teeri, former President of Aalto University. On being broached, Mrs. Haukio expressed her interest in this opportunity to support both Finnish research that promotes sustainability and young, talented designers.

Toxic components are replaced by ionic liquid

The gown was designed by Emma Saario, studying fashion and design, and Helmi Liikanen, studying textile design, both at the Aalto University. And the gown is definitely not something off the rack ‒ or will be after at least six years’ time.

For the time being only samples of different types are produced using it. One of the samples shown in public is the scarf presented to Emmanuel Macron, President of France, during his visit to Finland last summer.

The raw material of the dissolving pulp made at the Uimaharju mill is birch from the surrounding forests. Almost all of the mill’s production is exported to Asia for the manufacturing of viscose.

The production processes of dissolving pulp and ordinary pulp for paper production do not differ greatly from each other. To start with, the trees are debarked, then chipped and boiled to separate the fibres from each other. In paper pulp production, lignin and extractives are removed from the liquid after boiling, but in dissolving pulp production hemicellulose is also removed, in order to get a purer result.

To produce textile material from dissolving pulp, it must first be dissolved. In viscose production, the process requires chemicals which can be extremely toxic.

One of the partners in this Ioncell technology group is the University of Helsinki, which has developed the totally toxic-free ionic liquid used to dissolve the pulp. The same method can be used to dissolve paper pulp.

Sirpa Välimaa, Dissolving Pulp Product Manager at Stora Enso, wearing also an Ioncell scarf, emphasizes the good characteristics of Ioncell textile. “It has a beautiful shine and a pleasant feel and is breathable. It is as absorbent as cotton and when printed, the dye consumption is as low and the result as good as with polyester.” Photo: Anna Kauppi

Wood fibre has many advantages

To produce yarn, the fibres in the dissolved pulp must first be spun “together” to increase their length, after which they are brought into alignment by carding. After this the fibres can be spun into yarn just like ordinary textile fibres. The solvent is recovered and reused.

The Ioncell method produces a strong textile fibre. Because it is wood-based, it is renewable and biodegradable and is not a source of microplastics.

To produce one kilogram of cotton requires 140 litres of water, whereas the corresponding figure for wood-based textile material is 26. What is more, cotton plantations mainly rely on irrigation, while trees do well enough with natural rainfall.

Nor does the cultivation of trees compete for land with food production, as cotton plantations do.

Wood-based textile material also has good characteristics. It has a beautiful shine and a pleasant feel and is breathable. It is as absorbent as cotton and when printed, the dye consumption is as low and the result as good as with polyester.

Finland alone could replace one third of global use of cotton

At the moment, nearly 70 percent of the textile fibres used globally are oil-based, and nearly 30 percent are natural. Close to seven percent are wood-based, such as viscose. The market and the potential of wood-based textile fibres are illustrated by the fact that Finland’s pulp production alone could replace one third of the world’s cotton production.

The Ioncell project, in which Stora Enso is a partner, is only one project among many aiming to develop methods to produce wood-based textiles. Several other forest industry companies, including Finnish ones, are researching the field, with investments of up to tens of millions of euros.

Stora Enso started the work already in 2009, as part of a more extensive development project. The production of dissolving pulp began at Uimaharju in 2012.

The company is highly confident about the potential of wood-based textiles. As an example, the Uimaharju mill will switch completely from paper pulp to dissolving pulp during 2019.

One of the future possibilities could be to spin the fibres at Uimaharju. This would mean that only the carding and yarn manufacturing would take place elsewhere.

The gown of Mrs. Jenni Haukio for the celebrations of the Finland’s Independence Day was designed by Emma Saarnio and Helmi Liikanen, both studentsa at the Aalto University. Photo: Eeva Suorlahti

]]>By Climate Smart Forestry the researchers mean reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, enhancing forest resilience to climate change and increasing forest productivity and economic welfare based on forestry. At the same time, the carbon storage of forests would remain the same or even increase.

The report Climate Smart Forestry in Europe, published tomorrow in Brussels by the Think Forest forum of the European Forest Institute, reiterates the demand, voiced in November by the International Panel on Climate Change, that the use of fossil raw materials must be reduced. However, as humans are compelled to use natural resources, we have to find a way to replace the fossils.

Climate Smart Forestry provides one means of implementing the IPCC’s demand. It involves not only increasing the growth and carbon sinks of forests, but also active forestry and the resource-efficient production and consumption of wood-based products.

According to the group of researchers, these goals should be global. In the EU, for example, Climate Smart Forestry could reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by one fifth by 2050, while simultaneously creating sustainable wellbeing.

The researchers point out that while mitigating the climate change is important, it cannot be the only factor determining the use of forests. This was also mentioned in the IPCC report: climate policy must be adapted to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. The better the climate policy responds to other human needs as well, the easier it will be for citizens to support it.

Simple solutions are often wrong

Owing to the press of time emphasized by the IPCC, demands have been voiced to reduce the use of forests, as well as demands for additional forest protection. This solution is tempting in its simplicity, compared to the complexity of the problem.

The researchers quote the American journalist, satirist and social critic Henry Louis Mencken: ”For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple ‒ and wrong.”

The forest area of Europe has long been increasing, as has the timber stock per hectare, both in highly and poorly forested countries. In the three most forested countries of the EU, Finland, Spain and Sweden, the timber stock – that is, the carbon storage – has, due to forestry activities, increased by 68, 34 and 39 percent respectively between the 1970s until today.

The universal driver of forest harvesting is global demand. If loggings are decreased in Europe, trees will be logged somewhere else; that is, in areas where forestry and the production of wood-based products is, according to the researchers, almost always less sustainable than in Europe, from the perspective of both climate change and biodiversity.

If loggings in Europe should actually decrease, atmospheric carbon would increase almost immediately.

Forests should especially not be logged in regions where the forest area is already decreasing. As regards such regions, the EU should aim to assist in forest regeneration, planting trees and increasing know-how.

According to Lauri Hetemäki, Assistant Director of European Forest Institute, the group of researchers states that active forestry is the best way to prevent forest damages, because it gives a reason for the forest owner to manage the forests. Photo: Erkki Oksanen

New understanding of impact of forest damage on climate

Forest damage constitutes a particular danger to the carbon storages of forests. That forests are damaged is nothing new, but the occurrence of damage has increased with the climate change, and we are only beginning to understand the consequences.

“Damage is more extensive than before, and it has begun to occur in areas where we have not seen it previously,” says Lauri Hetemäki, Assistant Director of the European Forest Institute and one of the report’s authors.

According to Hetemäki, the researchers are fairly unanimous in considering that the extent of damage has increased because of climate change.

The most calamitous type of forest damage is fire, as it releases the carbon storage of forests directly into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and carbon black. Fires cause injuries to humans and destroy buildings. Because of them, the growth and carbon sequestration potential of young trees are lost, and the trees left in the forest after a fire also create emissions later as they decay.

The problems are only made worse by the fact that different types of damage often exacerbate each other. For example, trees damaged by storms or heavy snow loads are also susceptible to other damage, such as infestations by the bark beetle.

“We need to start managing the forests”

The most important means of decreasing the risk of forest fire is the reduction of dead and dry wood and altering the structure of forests into a mosaic of compartments that can be managed individually. As in Finland, this would help prevent the propagation of extensive fires over uninterrupted areas.

In Europe, forest fires are a particular problem in the Iberian Peninsula and other areas where the forests are not used. “They contain large accumulations of combustible forest biomass. In these forests, the type and extent of the fires depend directly on the amount of biomass,” says Hetemäki.

According to the authors, active forest management is the best means of fighting forest damage. This would also give the forest owners a reason to manage their forests actively.

Hetemäki quotes Marc Castellnou, one of the most respected forest fire experts in the world and Director of the Catalan Forest Fire Service: “We do not need more helicopters and firefighters, we need to start managing the forests.”

Still, there will be fires in all kinds of forests. It is therefore also necessary to be better prepared to fight them.

Forest management safeguards ecosystem services

The researchers also speak of the economic dimension of forest use. If trees are left unused, the forest owners will lose the revenue from selling them. What will also be lost is all the economic activity and wellbeing that the use of timber harvested from the forest generates across society.

A good example from Central Europe is the oak: thanks to the revenue brought by it, forest owners are able to keep the forests in good condition and, for example, replant them with other tree species if required by the climate change.

Forest protection is necessary because of maintaining carbon sinks and biodiversity. However, the researchers consider that these goals would not be promoted by protection on a very large scale, as it is accompanied by an increased risk of damage.

In addition, large-scale protection would not promote the other ecosystem services defined by the United Nations, such as landscape, wood products and various non-wood products of forests. Nor would it promote the principles of sustainable development, because it would decrease the possibilities of future generations to utilize forests for many different purposes, the way the present generation is able to do.

According the researchers, if we want to pursue these goals simultaneously with climate change mitigation, Climate Smart Forestry is the best solution.

]]>https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/research-report-climate-smart-forestry-could-reduce-eus-climate-emissions-by-20/feed/0Elks love young seedlings – Nature management helps both game and huntershttps://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/elks-love-young-seedlings-nature-management-helps-both-game-and-hunters/
https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/elks-love-young-seedlings-nature-management-helps-both-game-and-hunters/#respondFri, 30 Nov 2018 07:43:47 +0000https://smy.fi/?post_type=post&p=240228In Finland, tens of thousands of elks are hunted every autumn. It is not uncommon for a Finnish hunter to […]

]]>In Finland, tens of thousands of elks are hunted every autumn. It is not uncommon for a Finnish hunter to also be forest owner, forester – or environmental expert, such as Juha-Matti Valonen.

A bright and cheery twitter from the top of a spruce makes both Juha-MattiValonen and Perttu Valonen turn their heads simultaneously towards the sound.

“A crested tit,” both note, and suddenly, a tiny bird of a species not that common in Finland brushes past Juha-Matti’s shoulder.

Father and son are surveying areas which elk are known to use. Here in Harviala, Southern Finland, the Finnish forest industry company UPM has organized an elk hunt for decades, and the long tradition will continue this year. More than twenty elks are usually felled during the weekend.

Juha-Matti Valonen manages the practical organization of the Harviala elk hunt. For over ten years, Valonen has worked as an environmental expert for UPM Forest, and before that he was active in various wood procurement and forestry tasks.

Perttu Valonen, who graduated from the upper secondary school last spring, plans to study the field of natural resources and the environment, and is one of the experienced hunters in the district who help to organize the hunt.

Game-friendly forestry improves biodiversity

The decades-long hunting tradition is evident in the Harviala forest, resulting in some unusual features: in the middle of a typically Finnish spruce forest there is a broad corridor of deciduous trees, towards which the elks are driven by beaters and where the hunters wait on platforms.

“As far as we know, the area has been kept open by removing young trees since the 1950s, so hunters have a good visibility here,” Juha-Matti Valonen explains, pointing out that the deciduous trees left in the corridor, especially aspen, are important for biodiversity. In a young stand nearby some stout and tall aspen have also been left as retention trees.

“Younger hunters prefer game birds to elk,” says Perttu Valonen, who keeps in touch with other young hunters over a WhatsApp group. According to the Finnish Wildlife Agency, the average age of elk-hunters is over 50 years. Photo: Anna KauppiHunting dogs are tracked using a GPS locator. Photo: Anna KauppiJuha-Matti Valonen looks at forests as an environmental expert and a hunter. “There is an exceptional volume of information on forests in Finland, but to make use of it, you still need men in rubber boots, like me.” Photo: Anna Kauppi

The corridor is bordered by dense forest, which forms a transition area and provides shelter and food for a variety of species. Called ecotones, these areas between forests and mires or forests and waterways, for example, have a special importance. They are an integral part of nature management and game-friendly forestry, which has become a natural part of forest management in Finland in the past few years.

The shelter provided by ecotones is particularly important for different species of grouse and their chicks. Now in November, close to thirty wood grouse cocks are engaged in their autumn courting on the nearby mire, and when Perttu Valonen blows in his grouse whistle, a hazel grouse replies immediately.

“If nature management is properly presented and argued for, almost every forest owner welcomes the practices,” says Valonen, who also trains UPM’s forest experts and entrepreneurs.

Improving biodiversity does not need to be particularly laborious or costly. “The management of commercial forests actually means that you actively leave things undone. You leave deciduous trees, retention trees and decayed wood in forests and set up protection zones along the waterways.”

In addition to information for forest owners and experts, forest certification contributes strongly to the implementation of nature management. Because the width of the ecotones or the proportion of deciduous trees is precisely defined according to the FSC certification used in the UPM forests, the forest owners are better informed and the management gets easier, says Valonen.

55,000 hunting licences for elk

The Harviala forest area of about 8,000 hectares consists of commercial forest, as do most Finnish forests. In Finland, commercial forests have a number of uses: it is possible to grow logwood, protect nature, hike, pick berries and hunt all in the same forest area.

Traditionally, Finns visit forests on their own or with family members, but elk hunt makes an exception. From October to December, troupes of hunters dressed in orange hi-vis gear can be seen among the trees.

Elk is the the largest and heaviest species of the deer family in the boreal forests, with a shoulder height of almost two metres and a weight of over 600 kgs. In Finland, an elk hunter must be a member of a hunting club, each club must have a designated leader of the hunt, and a whole range of permits and licences are needed.

While game-friendly forestry is needed to make commercial forests more suitable for bird species, opposite measures are needed for elk: Finland’s huge elk population must be controlled to avoid traffic accidents and damage to agriculture and forestry. Young pine trees especially suffer from elks eating their tops. Therefore, the animals are steered away from seedling stands and roads with the help of salt lick blocks and fields cultivated specifically to feed game.

Every year, tens of thousands of licenses for hunting elk are issued, 55,000 this year. In terms of monetary value, elk is the most important game animal in Finland.

Ecological lifestyle

In Finland, elk hunting is not trophy hunting. The bag is shared by the hunters and the forest owner, and the whole carcass is utilized, as far as possible.

The Valonen family rarely queue at the supermarket meat counter, as not only elk, but also deer and game birds from the forest are found in their own freezer. As regards berries, mushrooms and fish, too, the family is almost self-supporting.

“Hunting is a very ecological way of life and game is local food at its best. Still, only a few hunters know how to make use of the entire carcass,” Juha-Matti Valonen says, adding that Perttu will also cook the elk tongue and liver.

The co-ordination of ecology and rational use also illustrates Valonen’s relationship to forests. Forests can be managed, felled and used, as long as environmental issues are taken into account. Both father and son have spent a great deal of their lives in precisely commercial forests, observing nature and drawing on its resources.

“You don’t need a particular reason to go to the forest – it is just full of experiences. But bring your binoculars and rifle, just in case,” says Perttu Valonen.

When Perttu and Juha-Matti Valonen go into the woods, what they never leave behind are binoculars. Orange hi-vis clothing is mandatory when hunting. Photo: Anna Kauppi

]]>https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/elks-love-young-seedlings-nature-management-helps-both-game-and-hunters/feed/0Human rights for nature?https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/human-rights-for-nature/
https://smy.fi/en/artikkeli/human-rights-for-nature/#respondThu, 29 Nov 2018 09:38:51 +0000https://smy.fi/?post_type=post&p=240220Whilst the basic rights of many people are still waiting to be recognized, a next step seems to expand the […]

]]>Whilst the basic rights of many people are still waiting to be recognized, a next step seems to expand the concept of human rights to being applied outside mere human beings elsewhere. The humanization of nature has been around for a long time. Lately it has reared its head again in many corners of the world, gaining more traction than it did in the 1970’s when first brought forward. A while back it was heatedly discussed in Germany whether trees have feelings. The jury is still out on many things on that one.

On a recent visit to New Zealand I was fascinated to learn that last year the Whanganui river was declared a person under New Zealand´s domestic legislation and that the first ”rights of nature” law was passed in 2017 as well.

The river’s representatives form a committee involving, perhaps surprisingly, NGO’s and the government. This committee is given the mandate to define the rights the river has. Indigenous communities are often perceived as automatic defenders of those rights. Close as the relationship often is, there is of course variety in what kind of relationship communities have towards nature.

In New Zealand the law names the bodies responsible. Should this not be the case, there is room for interpretation as to who has the right to say what. It became apparent in the discussions I had with New Zealand stakeholders, that this approach is still a work in progress and opinions are as passionate as forest related discussions here in Finland. The issues are important. It probably is in the interest of the government to stop illegal and damaging acts.

The change from a natural resource property to some kind of human being sounds like a quantum leap from a sci-fi story. Defending the human rights of nature may be tricky, because whoever tries to excercise it is basically void of the mandate to do so. If the Whanganui river had the right to flow in a certain way, for example, then any change to its course would be a violation of its rights. It has been presented, that if these rights were not there, its legal guardians determine the positive content of its rights. It is theoretically possible that the river might one day argue for its course to be changed because that change is necessary for its survival.

The mighty river Ganges in India has human rights as well. This kind of thinking is not unique to rivers, though. Similar kinds of shifts have been seen for other natural resources in for example Ecuador and Bolivia.
In Ecuador, nature’s rights have been taken up to the level of having been written in the constitution. The rights are seen as positive, specifically related to ”upgrade” measures, e.g. restoring, regenerating and overall respecting nature. The mandate of defending them has been given to whoever wants to assume them and make a case of protecting nature’s rights. This means that all individuals, communities, peoples and nations can demand that Ecuadorian authorities enforce the rights of nature.

This, of course, brings up the question of what kind of interests the defender has and how various interests, economic and others, are to be reconciled.

The New Zealand formulation, which more closely resembles the American theoretical origins of the rights of nature in the 1970’s, is different from Ecuador and Bolivia’s model by naming specific guardians and not granting positive rights.

How will all this affect land use policy and decision making? The essential question remains: Who has the right to define and control vs. land use & property rights. What is the relationship with official protection and conservation decisions and this new way of thinking? The effects could be considerable. Whoever ”owns” the discussion and defines the concepts to be used is at an advantage and in fact usually leads.

Global experts are wary in their predictions of our common future. We need to be clever and creative to survive, but how is the question. Nine billion people’s well being will have to be secured by the use of scarce natural resources on a finite planet in a not so distant future. Food, fibre, water and energy production for basic human needs are all intertwined. As the growing pressures mount on the sustainable use of renewable natural resources to replace fossil fuels, it is fascinating to see how basic concepts are being rethought and expanded. The need to highlight and bring forward human rights has been, luckily, noted and reacted upon. The EU for example has started to assess the consideration to human rights as a standard part of defining legality in the Voluntary Partnership Agreements with forested and wood trading partner countries. Honduras and Guyana are the first countries to be assessed in their VPA-negotiations. There are many more paths to explore.